I don't see Houston operating in this context. I see things much more in the paradigm I'm familiar with -- and of course, that could be my bias -- of the failing tech firm circling the drain. One such firm I worked for was small enough that I ran into the CEO in the men's room one day and asked about a sudden ad campaign the company had bought, with utterly horrible ads. I sort of said that, given the company's situation (which he'd actually explained very straightforwardly in a staff meeting), why were we doing this, and doing it so badly? I think, in fact, that he understood I genuinely wanted to know, I wasn't just needling him. The answer he gave was probably the most honest he could, that this was the advice he'd had, and he had to trust that the marketing people knew what they were doing.
I think the subtext was that of course, at this point, nobody knew what they were doing, if I didn't have my resume out, I should be doing it. In hindsight, he was a good man in a tough situation. But I think the ordinariates are in a situation much more like the tech company that was about to go under than Twitter, which will limp on indefinitely. Twitter's CEO has power, the poor guy in the men's room didn't.
Let's back off to a much longer perspective here. I think Benedict XVI is shaping up to be a well-intended but ineffectual pope along the lines of Adrian VI.His three main projects seem to be Summorum Pontificum, pretty clearly the most successful, Anglicanorum coetibus, briefly hyped at its inception but of no consequence, and what seems to have been a Quixotic effort at financial and managerial reform under Abp Viganò, which appears to have been effective enough that Viganò was promptly demoted. Fallout from this failed project appears to have led to Benedict's resignation.
This suggests to me that other factions in the Vatican were successful in resisting any serious efforts by Benedict at reform, but I question whether, like Adrian VI, Benedict had the authentic vision or fortitude to follow a reformist course. I would guess that Summorum Pontificum was seen as at best de minimis, while Anglicanorum coetibus was never more than a redirection or misdirection. Indeed, I see waggish comments now and then on YouTube and blogs that maybe its real intent was to bring more gay priests into the Church. I can't argue too hard with that. The one project from Benedict that was absolutely stopped in its tracks was Viganò.
So who did the CDF send to replace Msgr Steenson? A career Vatican bureaucrat who hadn't been through the normal promotional path for US bishops, which suggests to me he had no real experience with clergy formation, no experience with diocesan personnel, finance, property management, publicity, or any of the other functions that a real diocesan bishop supervises. Nor did he have the staff to support him. I suspect he's a useful idiot, has been recognized as such throughout his career, and was dispatched to Houston for that reason. They had no need for him in Rome would be another way to see it.
Not that anyone could do a better job in his position. I think the whole Anglicanorum coetibus project was set up to fail, although it probably has failed sooner than expected, with no real opportunity to create any hype that might reassure or distract what Ross Douthat has called the "restortationist" faction in the Church, the people who feel that simply by celebrating mass ad orientem or adopting a pseudo-Olde English liturgy, the Church can correct problems that are wrongly attributed to the Second Vatican Council.
I think that the laity and a number of good bishops were never really distracted by the redirect efforts, and reform will continue. On the other hand, Houston will continue to circle the drain -- like the hapless CEO I chatted with in the men's room, Bp Lopes will have the budget for a while to run his equivalent of a silly ad campaign, but it won't affect the outcome for Houston, and it will be irrelevant to what eventually takes place in the Church.
